Collaboration platforms are an emerging category of computer software. Typically, such platforms offer a set of software components and services that enable individuals to find each other and the information that they need to be able to communicate and work together to achieve a common business goal. In some implementations, the elements of a collaboration platform which are domain-agnostic might include messaging (e.g., emails, calendaring and scheduling, and contacts), team collaboration (e.g., file synchronization, task/project management, and full-text search), social computing tools (e.g., wiki, blog, tagging, RSS, and shared bookmarks), and real-time communication (e.g., presence, instant messaging, application/desktop sharing, and audio/video/web conferencing). Online implementations of collaboration platforms might be colloquially referred to as Enterprise 2.0, by analogy to Web 2.0.
A portal has designed an online collaboration platform in the advertising domain. The platform is called an advertising management platform and it can include an ad network, an ad server, an ad exchange, enterprise CRM functionality (e.g., for target marketing and account management), and enterprise DSS (decision support system) functionality (e.g., a digital dashboard), among other components. An ad network is a group of sites that a portal or a media company can sell collectively to an advertiser. An ad network might sell text ads, display ads, video ads, ads in video, or other advertising inventory. Publishers use an ad server to decide which ads to show and to help manage their advertising inventory, while advertisers and agencies use an ad server to simplify the ad-reporting process. In an ad exchange, buyers and sellers trade advertising inventory in an online central market in real time, like in a stock exchange. Networks put advertising inventory into the ad exchange to be bought, most often by another seller, who needs the impressions to fulfill an advertiser request. Through the ad exchange, buyers can gain access to a pool of inventory that might not have been available through any one vendor.
The workflows in such a platform tend to be complex, since they require a large amount of human-computer interaction from users assuming myriad roles with varying access rights to the data maintained by the platform. Consequently, there is a need for a graphical user interface (e.g., a model-view-controller) that employs personalization and/or contextualization to facilitate the efficient and effective use of the platform.